Popery is most ANTICHRISTIAN, an Antichrist, the Antichrist; many and successive deceivers, being, in the language of St. John, the deceiver, and the antichrist (ο πλανος και ο αντιχριστος). He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Not to confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is to be the deceiver and the antichrist. O how manifestly the whole system of Popery denies the Father! By its multitude of saints, mediators, and intercessors, it shuts out him whose name is Light, and whose name is Love. The whole system gives a representation of a severe Being, an austere and hard master, so that we can hardly discern anything of those boundless treasures of love with which the scriptures show us God so loved the world. Plenty have we of the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but where have we the spirit of adoption crying abba Father?

name MYSTERY.

Popery is antichrist as it is directly opposed also to Christ and the reality of his coming in the flesh; and this it performs in the same mysterious way which peculiarly entitles it to its distinguishing It pretends not to deny, but to multiply the flesh of Christ; so to multiply it that any priest can turn flour and water at once into the flesh of Christ. O wretched delusion! which wholly destroys the reality of Christ's risen body in heaven in our nature, and there wearing our form, and gives us another flesh to be handled here below, and be again and again a sacrifice and atonement yet making on earth for our sins. But popery is opposed to Christ in every thing. It is opposed to the merit of his blood, by teaching men to rely on the merits of saints and works of supererogation. It is opposed to the efficacy of the cross by the doctrines of the mass and purgatory. It is opposed to his mediatorial kingdom and dominion, by setting councils against his word. It is opposed to the efficacy of his Spirit, by washings and sprinklings of holy water to cleanse us. It is opposed to the authority of his word, by the traditions and authoritative interpretations of man. It makes war with his appointed sacraments, by multiplying them to seven, denying the cup to the laity and incumbering baptism with vain addi

tions. It is opposed to the holy law of God, omitting the Second Command, adding commands of men, and destroying the force of God's law, if men will pay for indulgences. It is opposed to the gentle and paternal discipline of the gospel by vain austerities, and a voluntary humility not required. It is opposed to the charity and union of Christians, by the curses of its canons and the persecution of all who join not with it. This is the antichrist which has for 1200 years virtually dethroned Christ, and under the mask and appearance of his pure and holy gospel, has set up the virgin Mary in his room; the chief prayers, images, chapels, pilgrimages, and worship, being everywhere made by the papists in countries under their full influence, to the virgin rather than to Christ.

Whether this great apostasy may yet in these last days develope itself in a more daring and blasphemous and direct infidelity, interpreters of God's word have differed; the past fulfilment has been such as to meet the full description according to the opinion of men of the deepest wisdom and piety.'

The pope (not indeed in his individual, but in his official character, and in the succession of popes) is THE MAN OF SIN, and the son of perdition, foretold by St. Paul in his epistle to the Thessalonians, as the apostacy to precede the coming of Christ. He opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Apostacy specially refers to idolatry,2 and the worship paid to the

'The publications establishing the Protestant view of antichrist are very numerous. It is the general interpretation of the Protestant Commentators on the Scripture. (See Commentaries) Gualter, Frith, Danæus, Fox, Whitaker, Fulke, Downame, Abbott, Beard Maresius, (who answers Grotius taking another view,) Keach, Halifax, Hurd, Cuninghame, as well as the more general statements of Mede, Warburton, Bishop Newton, &c. &c. may be consulted. But for one wishing to come shortly to the conclusion, the Roman Missal and the Decrees, and Canons, and Catechism of the Council of Trent, compared with 1 Tim. 3. 2 Thess. ii, and Rev. xiii. xvii. with furnish ample evidence. Antichrist in St. John's Epistle's is manifestly an appellative rather than a proper name of an individual.

2 See Cuninghame on the Church of Rome, the Apostacy in

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virgin Mary and the saints, as is evident by their missals, is idolatry; as are the making of images of Christ and the saints, and worshipping them. There is no scriptural reason to think that the man of sin is to be one individual, as in scripture a single person often represents a large body in their collective character. In the scriptures civil rulers or magistrates are frequently called "gods." Deut. x. 17; Exod. xxii. 28; Psalm lxxxii. 1,6; John x. 34; and nothing can be more clear from all past history than the pope's opposing and exalting himself above all such. The pope began his Bull against Henry the VIII. The pope being God's vicar on earth, and according to Jeremiah's prophecy, set over nations and kingdoms to root out and destroy, and having the supreme power over all the kings of the whole world.' The title, His holiness the pope,' and 'the supreme pontiff,' his setting aside the commands of God, his conferring absolution, his omission of the second commandment in commonly circulated catechisms, and his assuming to preside in and over the visible church, remarkably accomplish the prediction of St. Paul. His coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. The deceitfulness of popery pretending to be so holy and yet being so vile, and the innumerable false miracles by which their system is propped up, are here set before us. Bellarmine saysThe eleventh note of the church is the glory of miracles,' and he proceeds to instance it in miracles which he endeavours to enumerate down to the sixteenth age of the church, as if purposely to expound this prophecy, by shewing its accomplishment in popery.

ROME IS THE BABYLON OF REVELATION. The word Babylon means confusion. It is the name of the city first founded by Nimrod, about 4000 years since, as the seat of a tyrannical and idolatrous empire. The Babylonian was the earliest of those four universal monarchies that prevailed over the earth, its character proof of this, and of the full application of this prophecy to the Pope. In addition to the writers before mentioned, Bishop Jewell on the Thessalonians, Manton on the Man of Sin, with the general Protestant Commentators on Thessalonians ii. may be consulted.

was ambitious and tyrannical, idolatrous, and hostile to God, lording it over others, superstitious and licentious, as we find clearly set forth in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Rome is called Babylon because it is in so many things like Babylon of old. There are two marks given in the 17th chapter of Revelation that make this plain. At the 9th verse we are told where she dwells: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. The general description of Rome by Roman authors is, that it was founded on seven hills. At the 18th verse it is also said, The woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth. To no other city did this description apply when the Revelation was given to John. All notions therefore that Babylon means corrupted churches or Christians with the devil at their head, are contrary to God's word. Babylon is in Rev. xviii. 2-4 distinguished from the nations and kings of the earth. She sits upon the many waters or nations of the world. Rev. xvii. 1.

These things are so clear that the most learned Roman Catholics agree with us in this view, though some of them have applied it to Rome Pagan, and others consider it unfulfilled. That it cannot, however, be Pagan Rome, is clear. Rome Pagan never forced its idols on other nations; but popery makes all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication. Rome Pagan could not be called a harlot —a name only given to those that have apostatized from the true religion, a name given to Jerusalem (Ezek. xvi. 35.) when it became idolatrous. Rome Pagan also was never desolated by fire so as not to be restored, as it is here predicted that this Babylon should be. Nor did any thing of the kind take place when Rome became Christian. But if it were true that Rome Pagan was meant, then would there be still a remarkable testimony against Rome Papal, for in that case, as when Babylon is destroyed it is to become the habitation of every unclean and hateful bird, that interpretation would thus represent the pope, and cardinals, and jesuits, and monks now dwelling at Rome. To suppose it unfulfilled is to contradict the plain words,

'to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.'

What a most disgusting representation is thus given of this mystery of iniquity, A WHORE, a great whore, a mother of harlots, drunken with blood, drunken with the blood of the saints. What a horrible picture is this! Bossuet says, 'It must of necessity represent Pagan not Christian Rome, for to accord with the former she is properly named an harlot, but to represent the latter she should have been called a faithless spouse, an adulteress.' But in scripture an apostate, adulterous and idolatrous nation, or city, or church, is frequently called a harlot, Isaiah 1. 1; Jer. ii. 20; iii. 6; Ezek. xvi. 35; Rev. ii. 20, 21; Matt. v. 32; xix. 9. The term describes not a single act of idolatry, but the multiplied idolatries of its daily course. How strong is the language of the church of England on this point! 'Now concerning excessive decking of images and idols with painting, gilding, adorning with precious vestures, pearl and stone, what is it else, but for the further provocation and enticement to spiritual fornication to deck spiritual harlots most costly and wantonly, which the idolatrous church understandeth well enough. For she being not only an harlot (as the scripture calls her) but also a foul, filthy, old, withered harlot (for she is indeed of ancient years) and understanding her lack of natural and true beauty, and great loathsomeness, which of herself she has, does, after the custom of such harlots, paint berself and deck and tire herself with gold, pearl, stone, and all kinds of precious jewels, that she, shining with the outward beauty and glory of them, may please the foolish fantasy of fond lovers, and so entice them to spiritual fornication with her, who if they saw her, (I will not say naked) but in simple apparel, would abhor her as the foulest and filthiest harlot that ever was seen, according as appears by

1 See Homily on the Peril of Idolatry. The Protestant Commentaries on the book of Revelation, with slight exceptions, apply, Babylon to papal Rome. Cressener's Demonstration of the Apocalypse, Vitringa, Cuninghame, and Woodhouse, with Daubuz, Usher and Ouseley, Sir Isaac Newton, and Bishop Newton, are very valuable.